<p>
</p>
<p>Barrons, that would be GENDER that would help a male get into a school with “too many females” or a girl get into a few tech schools. It has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the kid at all, merely a gender balancing mechanism admissions uses. I don’t think admissions gives a fig whether a girl is gay or not when she applies to MIT, CalTech, Harvey Mudd, or Rose Hulman. They only care that it is a girl, because then they can claim a more balanced ratio in the class… sexual orientation does not matter to them.</p>
<p>I do not believe it is a hook anywhere in this day and age. Maybe back when hardly anyone was out, but barriers for LGBT students were just starting to crumble, there was a unique factor in an essay about it (a kind of diversity). But being out is so common today that I do not think it matters at all. I bet 1 in 20 kids these days has some “gay indicator” on their application (something in an essay or an EC like Gay-Straight Alliance – yes, I know there are straight kids in GSA as well, political campaigning for gay marriage, etc.) One of my kids is gay, but did nothing to disclose this in her applications. It just didn’t come up as a factor, and I am sure she also considered it none of the ad com’s business anyway.</p>